I’ll be moving too far from home for my mom to cook for me soon, and I’ve put a lot of thought into what I’ll eat. My priorities are low cost, low labor, and high protein. Here’s what I’m thinking:

>breakfast: homemade protein bar with oatmeal, whey protein powder, milk, and peanut butter. Maybe some sugar for taste. The benefit to protein bars is they can be eaten without producing dishes to wash.

>lunch: seitan and air fryer roasted lentils. I’ll probably add salt, pepper, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, paprika, or msg for taste. I will sprout the lentils a few days in advance to improve nutrient bioavailability. The nice thing about roasting lentils is I won’t have to worry about spoilage. The seitan is a good complement because together they produce a complete protein.

>dinner: Costco rotisserie chicken and a baked potato. The chicken is pre-prepared by Costco; all I have to do is separate the meat from the bones. I’ll keep all the meat divided into servings on a plate in the fridge and eat straight off it, so no dishes. I’ll bake the potatoes all at once and keep them in the fridge. I don’t really like baked potatoes but they are the most convenient carb-heavy side dish I can think of (hash browns, mashed potatoes, pasta, and rice would all require more dish-washing, whereas I can just eat the potato out of my hand). Plus, potato protein is complete.

>supplementary: one large carrot and one serving of fruit

I’m planning to meal prep one day every week and eat the same thing every day, with the exception of dinner: once a week, I plan to eat tinned mackerel instead of chicken for the omega-3s. I plan to do all or most of my dish-washing on my meal prep day. I’m hoping I can keep my daily meal costs around $5 or less.

What do anons think? Any nutritional deficiencies I didn’t catch? Any ideas for how I can further optimize cost, convenience, and nutrition? Picrel is some roasted lentils I made recently.